


Danger!! Dreadful Cinema

by ssclassof56



Series: Agent Pemberley [5]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssclassof56/pseuds/ssclassof56
Summary: A story inspired by MST3K's Danger!! Death Ray. Credit for most of the riffs go to the writers of MST3K, who do it best.





	Danger!! Dreadful Cinema

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LiveJournal's Section7MFU

Illya holstered his Special and consulted his watch as his fellow agents took the seats next to him. “You're late.”  
  
“In Rome? There’s no such concept,” Faustina asserted.  
  
“We had to lose a few friends.” Napoleon handed Faustina her bag of popcorn.  
  
“Are you sure you lost them?” Illya asked, reaching for his Special again.  
  
“Have you no faith in us? Tranquillo.” She offered him some popcorn, which he refused with a shake of his head. When his stomach rumbled, she gave him pointed look, and he reluctantly took a handful.  
  
The lights dimmed as the projector started and the screen flickered to life.  
  
“What are we watching?” Napoleon asked, eating an ice cream cone.  
  
“I didn't notice,” Illya said. “I didn't think we’d be staying.”  
  
Napoleon looked around the empty theater. “We need to lay low for a few hours. We can just as easily do that here as anywhere.”  
  
“In that case, I will take a nap.” Illya rested his head against the seat back and closed his eyes.  
  
“And miss Italy’s answer to James Bond?” asked Faustina, who had noticed the poster in the lobby.  
  
“A spy film?” he groaned. “Wake me when it's over.”  
  
“Philistine.”  
  
“You like these movies?” Napoleon asked. “Don’t you find them far-fetched?”  
  
“I think they're fun.”  
  
The title card appeared. “ _Danger!! Death Ray_ ,” she read dramatically.  
  
“That's redundant,” Illya said.  
  
“At least it's in English,” Napoleon said.  
  
“Yes, because bad dubbing will surely improve it,” Illya replied.  
  
“I wish our missions came to us with titles,” Faustina interjected, before Napoleon could formulate a retort. “It would make things that much easier. 'Danger, Killer Weasels.'”  
  
"'Danger, Soufflés,'” Napoleon said, and Faustina elbowed him.  
  
“'Danger, Insomnia,'” Illya said.  
  
He was ignored. Faustina continued, “I also appreciate the exclamation point scale. Death rays fall at level two. You'd always know just how much danger you were going to face.”  
  
“That would take some of the romance out of it,” Napoleon decided.  
  
The movie’s opening credits were accompanied by bouncy, swinging theme music. “Boppa-doppa-dada,” an ensemble vocalized repeatedly. Faustina began to sing along. Illya turned his shoulder to her.  
  
The story opened with Professor Carmichael explaining his reasoning for creating a death ray. “That was surprisingly accurate,” Napoleon said. “We wouldn't be in Rome if it weren't for that kind of cockeyed thinking.”  
  
“So that's a death ray, is it?” Faustina asked as the titular device was revealed. “Never seen one in the field. How does it compare?”  
  
Napoleon wiped ice cream off his fingers with a napkin. “Too big. Too ostentatious.”  
  
The professor demonstrated his ray for the visiting dignitaries. Faustina shook her head. “If it can burn through that steel alloy, wouldn't it burn through the wall too?"  
  
Napoleon glanced over at Illya, recalling their demonstration of Dr. Lambert’s miniature but powerful beam for Mr. Waverly. “Not necessarily,” he said.  
  
Predictably the villains kidnapped the professor, taking him away in what appeared to be a toy helicopter and submarine. “A rather two-bit organization,” Faustina marveled.  
  
“They should go to the Swiss for a loan,” Napoleon suggested.  
  
The theme song resumed. “Would you stop singing along?” Illya complained.  
  
“It's kind of jazzy. I'd think you'd like it.”  
  
Illya opened one eye and glared at her.  
  
“Danger, cranky Russian,” Napoleon said out of the side of his mouth.  
  
Faustina laughed. “With how many exclamation points?”  
  
“One and rising,” Illya growled.  
  
On the screen, the hero was dragged out of bed for his next mission by two modishly-dressed women. “Now this is definitely far-fetched,” Napoleon complained. “If I'm dragged in to headquarters, it's usually by a cranky Russian.”  
  
Faustina whistled. The spy hero of the movie was well over six feet tall and built like a weightlifter. “He's huge,” she said, not disapprovingly.  
  
Napoleon frowned. “Too big for an effective spy. And doesn’t he usually play Tarzan?”  
  
“If he didn't, he should have,” she said appreciatively.  
  
At headquarters, Señor Raymond offered his agent a month’s vacation for successfully recovering the professor and his ray. “A month off and a big paycheck? What organization is this?” Faustina demanded.  
  
“And do they have any openings?” Napoleon added.  
  
A minute later Faustina giggled infectiously. “His name is Bart Fargo.” Napoleon joined her laughter.  
  
“Should either of you really be mocking someone's name?” Illya inquired.  
  
Before Fargo left for the field, Señor Raymond advised him to use his microtransmitter on the 20 megacycle band. “What utter nonsense,” Illya grumbled.  
  
“I thought you were going to nap?”  
  
“Who can sleep with you two talking?”  
  
Fargo made sure to plan a romantic getaway with his boss’s secretary as he left for his mission. “Oh, yes, completely far-fetched,” Illya snorted.  
  
Fargo’s search began in Rome, for no explained reason. As the Tarzan-sized spy dove into a filthy canal to pursue the bad guys, Illya sneezed.  
  
“Are you catching cold just by watching someone get wet?” Napoleon asked, as the lights came up for the intervallo. A yawning employee came in with a tray of snacks for sale, and Illya bought two bags of popcorn.  
  
When the movie resumed, the action, if it could be called that, shifted from Rome to Barcelona. Fargo dropped though a skylight into a lady’s apartment, who obligingly disrobed to distract the bad guys who were chasing him. “Don't even suggest it,” Faustina warned, as Napoleon opened his mouth.  
  
“I presume this is the obligatory car chase,” Illya said a bit later, munching popcorn. “It appears more of a Sunday drive.”  
  
“If his theme music sped up, maybe he’d catch them,” Faustina suggested.  
  
They all laughed as Fargo, without even looking, kicked a door into a hidden intruder, and wished it were that easy.  
  
The movie’s confusing plot continued to plod along, while the agents kept up a steady stream of comments.  
  
“I wear a turtleneck better than he does,” Illya said of the lead henchman.  
  
Fargo crashed a swanky gathering at the evil mastermind’s villa. “Now this looks familiar,” Faustina said. “The only parties I ever attend anymore finish with a gun pointed at me.”  
  
“I envy his expense account,” Napoleon admitted when Fargo offered a former villain $6000 to take him to their headquarters.  
  
The boppa-doppa-dada theme resumed. Napoleon sang along with Faustina this time.  
  
Illya still would not sing, but he had plenty to say about the film. “That would be another problem with theme music,” he mused, as Fargo prowled outside the villain’s lair “It would prove very difficult to enter places steathily.”  
  
As Fargo stuffed unconscious thugs into a convenient closet, he complained, “There's never really one of those when you need it.”  
  
The climax of the film passed in a blur of fist fights, arpeggios, and wall-mounted guns. The agents sometimes laughed, sometimes quipped, and sometimes stared open-mouthed at the ridiculous antics of both hero and villains.  
  
Eventually the evil mastermind turned the death ray on Fargo, who easily dodged the beam.  
  
“That's an inherent weakness of this death ray,” Illya said. “It rather relies on your victim’s holding still.”  
  
When the ceiling quite literally fell in on the evil mastermind, the agents clapped in appreciation. The boppa-doppa-dada theme music played for the final time. Faustina thought she could hear Illya humming along quietly, but she didn't comment.  
  
The screen flickered and darkened, and the lights came up. The agents sat in contented silence for several minutes.  
  
Illya looked at his watch. “We have a few more hours,” he said. “I don't see why we can't stay here.”  
  
Napoleon and Faustina nodded in agreement. They both headed to the lobby, Faustina to see that the movie was run again despite the late hour, and Napoleon to get them more snacks. Illya put his feet up on the seat in front of him and sang quietly to himself. “Boppa-doppa-dada.”


End file.
